Making Disciples is What the Church is All About

The last words of Jesus that Matthew records are a command to His followers to make disciples:
“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age"(Matthew 28:19-20, NIV).

Yet, is that the first priority of your church? Is it your first priority in regard to your involvement in the church? If it is not your priority, it’s probably not your church’s priority, no matter what the mission or purpose statement says. I think this scripture, along with Luke’s last words of Christ from Acts 1:8 indicate that everything that the church is and does should be targeted at making disciples. I’m afraid our churches do a lot of things that have very little to do with making disciples. Some traditional church programs probably began as means to bring people to a saving relationship with Jesus and help them grow in that relationship, but as the years have gone by the programs have become an end in themselves. Churches also are victims of what the military calls “mission creep.” By that, I mean the church starts with the very simple mission God gave it, but other things get added. For some, the unspoken mission becomes protecting the building, or reaching only a certain kind of people, or preserving the past, or even putting on a show.

Don’t get me wrong. I am amazed at how much many people do for their church. People give generously of their time. I applaud their efforts, but some of them work very hard at church doing things that don’t have anything to do with what Jesus said was the main thing. What do you do at church? Does it contribute to making disciples? Make a list of the ministries, programs and activities of your church. Are there any that don’t contribute to making disciples? Then why is the church doing them? Often the answer is, “Because we’ve always done it.” Churches are not very good at stopping things. Old programs that no longer make disciples need to be stopped to make room for new more effective ones.

There are a lot of churches that are declining. For many, the reason is that they have chosen to make other “churchy” things more important than making disciples. Christians get comfortable with churchy things and would rather do those things than do what is necessary to help people find Christ’s love and grow in it. A lot of churches are all for making disciples as long as they can do what they have always done. The truth is there is only so much time and so much money. If your church devotes only the time and money that is left after the church does all its churchy stuff to making disciples, it is probably not doing very much. Folks, Jesus said the point of the church is to make disciples. If that isn’t the point of your church, is it really a church?